Backgrounder: Super Tuesday in 2008, biggest in history
Profiles: U.S. 2008 presidential primaries, caucuses forerunners
Backgrounder: Key players in 2008 U.S. presidential race
Backgrounder: U.S. presidential nomination process and Iowa caucus
Backgrounder: Major events leading up to 2008 U.S. presidential race
Calender: U.S. 2008 presidential primary, caucus
Super Tuesday contenders' profiles
Special Report: U.S. presidential election 2008
OTTAWA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday he has ordered a probe into the leaking of a government memo outlining U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's position on NAFTA.
Last week, U.S. and Canadian media reports cited a Canadian government memo as saying Obama's chief economic advisor Austan Goolsbee assured the Canadian side that Obama's tough talk on the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) should be viewed more as "political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."
The leaking is now being cited as a key reason Obama lost Ohio's Democratic presidential primary to Hillary Clinton.
"We will take every step necessary to get to the bottom of this. The leaking of this kind of information for whatever reason by whomever is completely unacceptable to the government of Canada," Harper told the House of Commons Wednesday. "In fact, it may well be illegal."
"It is not useful, it is not in the interests of the government of Canada, and the way the leak was executed was blatantly unfair to Senator Obama and his campaign," he said.
"We will make sure that every legal and every investigative technique necessary is undertaken to find out who exactly is behind this."
Harper said the clerk of the Privy Council and the Department of Foreign Affairs have launched a joint probe of the affair.
Both Obama and rival Hillary Clinton said last month during a televised debate that if a Democrat is elected as the next president, Mexico and Canada would be pressured to renegotiate NAFTA.
